"That Could Never
Have Happened In Real Life!"
Recreating History on the Tabletop
by David Commerford
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How many times have you heard
that one? Its one of the of the most popular cries in wargaming
and often founded on assumption rather than knowledge.
As with most periods it is perfectly easy to ‘play’ Napoleonics without a true
appreciation of the tactics and localised
events that made up the actual battles and
minor actions of the Wars. Indeed many
rules will allow you to do just that. It is
also possible, as with other periods, to
become an expert at winning with a rule
set and reduce tactical considerations to the
manipulation of the rules rather than the
command requirements of the time.
Now of course there is a world of
difference between the actual level of
knowledge required to have a regiment
form square and the depth needed to play a
game. The truth is some elements of
command were very complicated and
believe it or not, some of the officers of
the day found their real tasks quite beyond
them.
Major Camac who went to the
Peninsular in 1812 with the 1st Life
Guards, was recorded as incapable of
organising a simple manoeuvre when
requested.
Tom Morris, in his memoirs, recalls
his company officer at Quatre Bras. A
Captain of thirty years standing who had
never been in action and who had to be
saved from disaster by the Regimental
Adjutant. On account of being used to total
reliance on the Company NCO’s even on
the parade ground!
This trend of commanders relying on
subordinates to get them out of a jam held
good at all levels of command so perhaps
the rules coming to the aid of players is
not that unrealistic given the variable levels
of competence of real commanders.
However, what is less acceptable, in my
view, is someone who argues about what
may, or may not, have been possible when
by their own admission they have not
‘done their home work’.
Of course new comers to the hobby
are likely to find the wealth of information
on the period in general, pretty daunting. I
believe that the tally of books written over
the years on Napoleon alone is reckoned at
over four hundred. This also leads to
difficulties in the level of discrimination
required to actually get a feel for what
went on at combat level. The amount
narrative historical writing still clouds
perception of what may have actually
happened during the course of a particular
battle or campaign.
Here I use the term "may have
actually happened" quite deliberately for it
is a process of detection that I feel a lot of
period gamers shy away from. Many
authors have obviously made a choice not
to delve to deeply in this area while still
producing excellent books on the conduct
of military and political aspects of the period.
Differing Views
Then there is the matter of differing
views and interpretation of recorded
events. While we are not quite in the
position of reading two accounts and
getting three versions, we are in many
cases not that far short. This can be very
confusing and it is sometimes very difficult
to discern from material written by both
contemporary and non period authors what
the accepted view of events are.
There are several reasons for this.
Contemporary writers can have a view
limited by the extent of their personal
involvement and may not know the true
facts of what happened within the enemy
army. Also period writers sometimes have
their own agendas and so accounts can be
deliberately skewed in favour or against,
individual generals or nationalities. Then
there are the self-promotional qualities of
autobiography. Many participants would
have you think that they were personally
responsible for winning a battle or that it
was lost because their advice went
unheeded. Now of course in some cases
this could be true but you are unlikely to
find fact in such claims if they are made
by a Captain in a line infantry battalion!
More modern writers sometimes use
differing source material for their work and
so get differing perceptions handed down
to them. Alternatively several writers may
use the same original source with out
knowing that its flawed until someone else
proves, or suggests otherwise.
English Language
Additionally, there are the problems
caused by the fact that not all the
participants of the Napoleonic Wars spoke
English. Now this is very inconvenient!
Why on earth they had to engage in a
conflict where the vast majority of the
participants spoke either French or German
is beyond me! I mean you don’t get this
problem with the American Civil War do
you? Not only that but there so many more
literate combatants in that period too. Ah
well, c'est la guerre!
To be serious, this is a major problem
for the native English speaker and I’ll
include our American cousins in this (just
this once). Given the general aversion to
learning anymore than is required to read
menus, or the back of beer bottles, it does
deny access to a wealth of information! I
will happily include myself in this
disadvantaged group, although I can read
far more French than I can speak, I would
most certainly not be up to reading the
whole of a contemporary memoir and my
German would not even qualify as a joke!
However, translations are available
and if all else fails when looking at a new
book, go straight to the back of your
prospective purchase or point of
information and check out what sources
the author used. If there are original
French, Prussian, Austrian, Russian, etc.
authors noted it has got to be a better bet
than one which has stuck to the same old
tried and tested English accounts.
Particularly if you are not dealing with
events in the Peninsular and even then
there are valuable insights into what
happened from a French point of view. Not
to mention the areas where the British
were not that involved such as Catalonia,
or the early part of the War between 1807
and 1809. How’s your Spanish, Amigos ?
Returning to the matter of first hand accounts.
I must confess that like a lot of people
I took some time to come to these. It is
often more appealing to read an
authoritative work by a good author who
has done the research for you and then
packaged it up into a big picture account of
an individual battle or campaign. I recall
reading Chandler’s The Campaigns of
Napoleon from cover to cover when first
got it home (I note terrifyingly, that my
copy, new at the time of the second print,
will be thirty years old, next year!)
Besides which, journals etc. are often
full of boring bits like: "July 18th.
Mounted on the Ford piquet. The enemy
during the day sent many patrols down in
front of La Alamedia, close to my
videttes."
Well, yes and no. Some of the
detail about the weather and state of the
roads can be useful and the view of day to
day life in the army with the small details
of how units moved and organised their
activity is also interesting. I’ll grant you
that an author’s speculation on his chances
of getting off with the local girls is less
important in the scheme of things but
soldiers have always been like that!
In addition you could do worse than
getting hold of the tactical works of Ney,
Davout, Marmont and others. Most are
available in English (although not easy to
get hold off compared with more popular
works) and see what constraints your rules
put on you when looked on in the light of
real generals experience.
So why bother?
Well, to take you back to the title of
this piece. How do you know what
happened in real life? Ask the people who
were there! Now of course you have to go
about this in a particular manner.
Obviously a lot of non-contemporary
authors use passages from original sources
and the more the merrier in my view
(provided they use the better sources) as
there can be no substitute for a personal
experience. Particularly if it can be
checked out against known fact and
corroborated in some way. I like Ian
Fletcher’s work, in terms of the British
Army, in this regard. The only problem in
this that you do tend to find the same stuff
turning up over and over again as people
often use quotes to make the same point
and there are limits to what’s available.
There again it is very difficult at this
distance in time to get the perfect insight
into how Napoleonic battles were actually
fought and those who were on the ground
at the time are our best hope as to piecing
the jigsaw together.
These accounts along with the work
carried out on period drill and the
application of contemporary tactics by
Nafziger, Muir and Nosworthy for
example, can start to throw light on the
validity of the work of rule writers and
how closely their efforts come to a mirror
of reality.
Now before I move on to a couple of
examples, let me just pause for a ‘reality
check’. That is to say what I mean by
‘reality’ in this context.
To anyone who thinks I mean a step
to the recreation of, death, pain, fatigue,
lack of food, fear, panic, chaos and
confusion, please stop reading this now
and go and get help. Both for your own
sake and the safety of others! The reality
of personal experience is not the goal. IT’S
A GAME!
The goal should be to make it one that
can broaden you knowledge and
understanding without tying things up in
levels of unplayable detail.
What we are looking for is the reason
why rule writer X has chosen to add a +2
for a particular event, or set of
circumstances and has he any evidence that
it happened, or happened often enough, to
justify it. These bonus points, or
percentage throws, or deductions abound.
If I had a random selection of gamers here
with me as I write, I would lay a
substantial amount of cash on each one of
them being able to name a particular item
they disagree with from the rules they use.
Now there are points in most rules that
will attract disagreement. People are too
individual to expect otherwise. What I should
like to encourage is the desire to try and find
evidence based reasons why such and such
‘just doesn’t feel right’ or should be included
and has been left out. That way we get better
informed gamers and hopefully better rules,
in terms of their historical reproduction of
events.
So how can this be moved on?
Well one way is to encourage players
to move beyond the reading of general
histories. Chandler for example, is still
probably the best English language book
on the Wars as a whole. Although Spain is
not covered in depth due to Napoleon’s
direct involvement in the field being so
limited.
However, it tells the reader very little
about the individual control and fighting of
a Napoleonic battle. There are one or two
excellent passages but overall that was not
the purpose of the book. Novice players
will often come to the period via such
works and the many simpler books that
cover individual campaigns and associated
battles. However, if their understanding of
what went on is limited to such
publications the facts can go missing en
route.
What is needed to help our
understanding is a deeper view provided
by first hand accounts. These do have to be
treated with a little caution, however. I
have developed may own filter system for
this. Its not rocket science and when
written down may read like a list of the
Bloody Obvious but here goes:
Was the author actually in a physical
or command level position to really report
on what he claims?
How long after the events did he write
his work?
What are the views of historians or
contemporaries on the reliability of the
account?
Is the author famed for exaggeration
or are they known to have an ‘axe to
grind’?
How does it read to you now? For
example, are they boastful? Was it all
someone else’s fault?
Are they commenting on an
exceptional event or a common one?
Is the work actually known to be the
authors or have they been edited or
reworked after their death?
If it’s a translation is it known to be a
faithful one?
I might also be tempted to add: Did
they hold rank above Colonel during the
Wars. A lot of rather big "porkies" seem to
emanate from the pens of those of General
Officer rank at the time, as opposed to
those who may have achieved it
afterwards.
Eylau & Waterloo
N ow couple of contemporary examples, to illustrate that they can be both
useful and not so useful.
The first is taken from Sir Robert Wilson’s, Campaigns in Poland, 1806 -- 1807.
Wilson was a remarkable Englishman
who served with the Russians and was
present at many battles of the period.
However, he was only an observer and it
should be noted that if it were possible, he
would have married the Russian Army, if
not the nation, and had its children!
The following comes from his description of Eylau:
"A regiment of French cuirassiers
had, during the storm, gained an interval in
the Russian line between their centre and
left wing; but the Cossaques and some
hussars, immediately as they were
perceived, bore down upon them. The
cuirassiers, apparently like men stupefied
by then magnitude of their own enterprise,
and unprepared for success, rushed with a
considerable detour, through the rear of the
camp, and then turned towards the right of
the Russian right wing, but their bodies successively tracked the course, and only
eighteen escaped alive."
Now does this sound like the massed charge of the French Reserve Cavalry to you?
Well, it doesn’t to me either. So were
all those books in which you have read
about it wrong? Or was it all French
propaganda? Or more likely, was it Wilson
having been in a central position through
out a battle fought in appalling visibility,
actually repeating a genuine perception of
an isolated French unit, at the very extent
of their penetration into the Russian
position, that was given to him by
someone else?
My second example also features a
famous cavalry action, the Union Brigade
at Waterloo. This well known and often
badly reported event, can give some
interesting insight to cavalry and how
wargames rules deal with them.
To start with let us look at a fairly
recent description of part of this action. No
names, no pack drill, as they say. I’m not
trying to make a point in terms of the
author, or the publication. Only that if this
section is all you have read of the charge,
you would reach different conclusions
from those who were there.
"Ponsonby attacked Donzelot and
Marcognet in two lines –- the Royals and
Inniskillings in the first line and the Scots
Greys in reserve to their left and rear. The
latter soon forgot their supporting role,
however and swept on into Marcognet’s
flanks to complete the total rout of this
Division."
Stirring stuff! However, it is both
inaccurate and misleading. Though it at
least spares us the old chestnut of
Highlanders racing into action holding the
stirrups of the Greys! The author does of
course write earlier of damage inflicted on
the French by artillery and Picton’s
Division but there is more to things than
that.
Sibourne’s Waterloo Letters contains
fifteen detailed accounts of this action
from those who took part. From them you
can tell how the Regiments operated by
squadron (common practice) not regiment.
That not only were the French infantry
shaken up by casualties received
previously but that the Union Brigade
waited for them to come up to and even
cross a hedge on one side of the Ohain
road before crashing in head on and
charging back through the hedge
themselves. Further more there are reports
that large numbers of the French were
streaming away to the rear even before
contact!
In addition, no one mentions an attack
on the flanks by the Greys and given their
relative starting point this would have been
very difficult to achieve, even with the
left-hand squadron. Elements of the Royals
and Inniskillings may have hit the side of
the other columns originally facing them
but it is more likely that they contacted a
muddle of troops who were about to break,
or had actually broken.
It should also be pointed out that the
charge did not pass through the British
infantry in front of them in a manner that
generally goes unexplained. Rather the
battalions were either wheeled out of the
way, or passed back through the intervals
in the cavalry as they came forward
(another reason for operating in
squadrons).
I trust that readers will already have
spotted some thing of interest in relation to
their own commonly used rule sets? How
did they rate on terrain, surprise, mutual
levels of disorder, previous casualties,
fresh troops, cohesion during a charge etc.?
The next time you are faced with a
rules problem don’t just ignore it, or
wonder what the author was smoking when
he wrote it, hunt around for some factual
information. I’m sure that you will find
some fascinating evidence as to what
actually occurred.
You never know you might come up
with something better than he did.
How hard can it be?
Besides, what’s the worse thing that
can happen? You may play fewer games
and read more. At least then when you say
"That could have never have happened in
real life!" you might have some evidence
to back it up with!
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